Warhammer Online Beta Shutdown

Garthilk writes "Most MMOs typically go through delays in release date; EA Mythic's Warhammer Online has already been pushed back to early next year. A recent announcement from the company on their beta boards has given fans pause, though. EA Mythic is shutting down their external beta test program, and possibly won't reopen it until December. Mythic says this pause in external testing will serve as an opportunity to refine and polish the games core mechanics. A public announcement is said to follow soon."

ob

Did they fail a 2D6 roll against their INT?

Re:ob

Did they fail a 2D6 roll against their INT?

No. This is Warhammer, not D&D.

They succumbed to the corrosive taint of Chaos, and even now in the cubicles, the hideous bloated beasts that were once developers stalk and hunt each other in a vicious battle for supremacy in the loathsome hive of corruption that was once their office. In time one of these abominations of nature will establish itself as the master, and under its appalling leadership a ghastly crew of mutant horrors will stream forth from their lairs to bring woe and misery to the peaceful human lands.

Feels like Vanguard...

Feels like Vanguard all over again, only this the devs/publisher cut the beta-testers out of the loop. I'm not in the Warhammer Beta, but was in the Vanguard Beta. I read this and thought of how many times the Sigil crew said they were reworking the "core mechanics" and ended up releasing a product with no direction (and way too early.)

they forgot to paint the figures

Everyone knows they are not playable till ya paint 'em.

Sometimes...

Translation: "We realized that the whole thing was a steaming pile of crap, and needed to be seriously re-engineered."

Sometimes you just have to realize that your "Beta" is more of an "Alpha."

Meh...

Blizzard will still continue to copy off of Warhammer, regardless if it comes out or not.

NDA anyone?

Gotta love how the news got leaked out. This was supposed to be covered by the NDA but it escaped from the forums (and it was emailed to testers as well).

It's a lot easier to deal with an internal test team than a large external one. Don't have to worry about supporting the end-users (testers) as much. Don't need to worry about server downtimes and preparing/serving up patches. If Mythic feels they need to do this, it may be good. I still have a lot of faith in the company because of DAoC.

Skaven!

Call me when Skaven is a playable race.

Maybe they learned a lesson?

Gordon Walton, co-studio director at BioWare Austin, summed it up in a speech he gave last month at the Austin Game Developer's Conference. (a write up on the speech can be found here [gamasutra.com]

"I think that quality was a true innovation on Blizzard's part. Nobody had done that before at that level of play. Because they did that, their game stood out night and day above everybody else's games. What's the biggest mistake? What everybody did without exception -- shoving it out the door.

"You have one chance to make a first impression; the brand value of an MMO is created within the first week of launch. End of story. You're done the first week... I say a week, but it might even be a day. It's a post-World Of Warcraft world. You better do that."

So I take this as a positive sign that Mythic wants to make a bunch of money, and realize that if they don't take the time to do it right the first time, it will not make the kind of money they want.

IP holder.

Games Workshop is widely known to be very hands on and overly protective of their IP. It could be that Mythic is obligated to make sure that everything they do as far a gameplay and strategy is the most perfect blend of table-top style gaming and the MMORPG style of gaming. If they don't get it just right, I have a feeling they could see a lawsuit from the IP holder, whether Mythic is able to make a killing on the game or not.

This is of course, all speculation.

Translation

We're tired of babysitting all these crybabies who think they're playing a production game.

Yeah, yeah, your fucking horse fell off the cliff, shut up already; I'm trying to track down the money dupe bug your clan-mates have been exploiting for the past two weeks.

Yes, we know about it. No, we're not going to punish you, we want to figure out how you're doing it.

What?? Now you other fuckers from another clan are bitching that we're 'not enforcing the rules' and how 'this game is totally gonna suck cause the admins don't do anything to prevent cheating'?

This is a BETA people; wait, fuck it, it's now an ALPHA. Get off our servers and let us do some real work. We'll let 10% of you assholes back in when we need some real help.

Thank you, and get a life.

Well who wants to run a beta when

The release of Mass Effect is approaching?

What really happened

The bastards at Games Workshop has released a new series of figures and all old figures are no longer playable causing the mmo team to go back and redesign all of their character models.

O RLY?

Redo the game's core mechanics? Come on, how hard is it to implement big meat bags with taunt, healers, blasters, and retarded AI that recognizes none of this?